Coating material is a kind of supporting engineering material coated on the surface of the object to be protected or decorated, and can form a continuous film firmly attached to the coated object, which plays a role in protection, decoration or other special functions, and is widely used in various subdivisions of construction and industry, including wall coatings, waterproof coatings, floor coatings in the construction field, automotive coatings, wind power coatings, marine coatings, industrial wood coatings, construction machinery coatings, etc.
China is the world's largest producer and consumer of coatings, with a total output of 35.772 million tons last year, a year-on-year increase of 4.5%, and has dominated the world for 15 consecutive years, and the apparent consumption (domestic production + import - export) was 35.663 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 4.2%. While the main business income decreased by 4.5% year-on-year to RMB404.48 billion, the total profit increased significantly, up 9.5% year-on-year to RMB23.74 billion.
In the past, architectural coatings caught the real estate train and rapid development, the so-called prosperity and loss, in recent years, affected by the market environment of the construction industry, the demand for architectural coatings has declined. On the other hand, the expansion of the new energy vehicle industry has brought new opportunities to the industrial coatings market, mainly due to the need to improve the appearance and durability of vehicles.
At present, China's paint market presents the characteristics of "small and scattered", although the number of enterprises is large, but the scale is generally small, and foreign-funded enterprises occupy a large market share. This is more intuitively reflected in the list of "Top 100 Chinese Coating Enterprises" released by the China Coating Industry Association in 2023 - among the top ten coating companies, foreign-funded enterprises occupy 6 seats (2 in the United States, 1 in Singapore, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark), and 4 seats are occupied by local enterprises.
Three Trees, Xiangjiang Coatings, Beixin Jiabaoli and Meitushi ranked 2nd, 7th, 8th and 10th respectively. Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Putian, 3Trees is the largest paint company in China, with 13 production bases in Fujian, Sichuan, Henan, Guangdong, Jiangsu and other places, and more than 200,000 sales outlets across the country.
By proposing the concept of healthy paint, playing the slogan of "3Trees, Live Now", and adopting the strategy of "Rural Surrounding Cities" to directly develop agents for the county-level market, 3Trees stood out from many domestic brands and took the lead in breaking through the encirclement of foreign brands in terms of sales.
In 2011, 3Trees' revenue exceeded the 10 billion mark for the first time, but due to its deep binding with a number of real estate developers, it suffered its first annual loss since its listing. Fortunately, we adjusted our operations in a timely manner and entered the small B channel (relatively scattered regional real estate, office buildings, hospitals, municipal and other projects, as well as home improvement and complete companies) and C-end channels.
From January to September last year, the company achieved revenue of 9.41 billion yuan and net profit of 555 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.42% and 84.44% respectively. As the country continues to promote the construction of new urbanization, policy opportunities such as infrastructure projects, old city renovation and urban renewal will continue to drive the demand for coatings and building materials, and 3Trees is expected to enter the rapid growth track again.
Nippon Paint of Singapore, PPG of the United States, AkzoNobel of the Netherlands, Axalta of the United States, BASF of Germany and Hempel of Denmark have a place in the top 10. For example, Hempel is in the forefront of production and sales in the fields of industrial protective coatings, marine coatings and container coatings, BASF and Axalta are in the leading position in the automotive coatings market, and PPG and AkzoNobel have almost monopolized the field of civil aviation coatings.
Nippon Paint ranks first, behind the Singapore Lishi Group (Nipsea) is the first in Asia and the fourth largest paint company in the world, the actual controller of 96-year-old Wu Qingliang is originally from Chaozhou, Guangdong, according to the "2024 Hurun Global Rich List", its net worth is as high as 79 billion yuan, ranking first in the global paint industry.
In 1992, Nippon Paint officially entered the Chinese market, the name means "the establishment of diplomatic relations", and it is an early coating multinational enterprise to enter the Chinese market. After more than 30 years of development, it has more than 70 production and supply chain bases, set up a China headquarters in Shanghai and an Asia-Pacific R&D center of 30,000 square meters, with about 11,000 employees, and its business covers decorative coatings, architectural coatings, industrial coatings, automotive coatings, marine coatings, kitchen and bathroom substrates, protective coatings, coil coatings, powder coatings and auxiliary materials. Last year, sales reached 482.7 billion yen (about 22.65 billion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 7.1%.
Write at the end
From the perspective of the global industry coating industry pattern, the top 10 companies in the global market account for about 50%, of which the CR10 in mature paint markets such as the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Germany is more than 90%, while the figure in China is only 30%, and there is still huge room for improvement.